Ghosts
by Palaemona
Summary: He wonders if she always looked like this. Head held high, breath heavy in the air. Eyes bright with rebellion and skin paled with secrets. She's a frigid sort of beauty. Undefined.


_She's only seventeen but she walks the streets so mean._

He wonders if she always looked like this. Head held high, breath heavy in the air. Eyes bright with rebellion and skin paled with secrets. She's a frigid sort of beauty. Undefined.

He doesn't see her a few days after. A door still hangs in the way. Locked and sealed, with the key thrown away. She doesn't show up in school. Doesn't answer his texts. And when she does return, she's late and her knuckles are bandaged. She's out of his reach, drifting away like a free spirit.

She's angry and wild. Lashing out with hot words and deadly aim. He stays back. He tries to forget her and him and everything that was. He focuses on what is now.

She's paler than before. A little more washed out, a little more wearied. She doesn't have time to waste any longer. Every time he sees her, she has coffee grinds beneath her nails and dark circles clinging to her eyes.

_Street walking at night, and a star by day._

"Jade," he calls through the halls, catching hold of her arm as she strides by. She comes to a grinding halt in her forceful stride, eyes flaring.

"What?" She spat out, tilting her head back to look at him head on.

He swallows stiffly, unsure. "Are you okay?"

Her lips twist into a bitter smile. "Are you?" She mocks roughly, her voice filled with contempt and pain.

"Seriously. Are you alright?" his voice lowers, and he catches the skeletons in her eyes.

She swallows. "I'm always fine, Beck." She's filled with summertime sadness, and before he knows it she's gone.

(Just a ghost of her remains)

He finds her one night. She's sitting on a barstool behind a counter with an apron tied to her waist. She's deep within the thick pages of Shakespeare, and he coughs loudly.

"What." She demands, not looking up. She sips tea freely from a chipped mug, steam curling upwards into the cold air.

"Since when did you get a job?" He asked; voice raw. He holds tight to the counter, refusing to release.

She raised an eyebrow, lifting her chin. "Since I got bored. What do you want?"

He stares at her, his eyes bearing into her. Her eyes glint from the dim lights that hang above, and he swallows. "Coffee."

"Fine. Two dollars." She demands, sticking her hand out.

He slips her the money, trying to grasp hold of her before she slipped away. But she was gone, working her way down the counter to the coffee makers, pouring coffee out,

He calls to her thanks, but she ignores him. She's back to the world of Shakespeare and death and love.

_(Their love is dead.)_

_She laughs like God, her mind's like a diamond._

He wishes he opened the door. He wishes he hadn't let her slip away. He wishes she was here, and not there. He wishes he was there, and not here.

He catches glimpses of her. She's vanished into a ghost, darting out of sight.

Tori tries to talk to her, and Cat tries to cling to her. She escapes them, holding herself away.

One day she collapses.

She's turned weightless, like a living skeleton. Her books clatter to the floor, and she's crumpled in an angry heap. Students rush to her, trying to do something. Her hair is like a river of sin over the school's hallway floor. There's an angry scar on her wrist, and he can't take his eyes off her.

"What happened to her?" They whisper, eyes gawking.

He knows.

She broke her heart.

(_He broke her heart.)_

_Looking for fun, getting high for free_

She disappears for a while.

No one knows where drifted off to. Some say a clinic. Others say she finally cracked. And then they forget about her and move on with life. But he can't move on and he can't forget about her.

And then, she returns.

_(But in his mind she never left)_

She stalks the halls silently, boot clad heels striking the floor mutely. Eyes flash anger and pain, and he can't even recognize her any longer. Her hair is gone, falling somewhere just under her ears. Her eyes are windows, broken ghosts gazing out at him.

She clasping books on evolution to her chest, and her ear buds blare the livid sounds of guitars.

"Move." She demands hotly when he plants himself before her locker.

Beck shakes his head bravely. "Where were you?"

"Not here. Move." Jade's eyes glare at him, and he can see her hands morphing into angry fists that shake.

"Seriously, Jade. What happened to you?" He begs softly, feeling like he's going to break and collapse and fall apart.

"Somewhere better," she smiled, and all he can taste is smoke and vodka.

_That's the little story of the girl you know._

She leaves the building as soon as she is handed a little piece of paper that says she's successfully graduated. Beck chases after her, because he already has his, and his future is already given away to her.

"Where are you going?" He asks her, as she sits on a street curb. She's pulling out a bottle from her bag and he swallows.

"I'm going to New York." She frowned at him. "University and stuff."

Beck sits beside her, casting a glance at the alcohol in her hands. "You know what I mean."

She sighed. "I don't know."

"Can we stop doing this? Running around and doing this to ourselves?" Beck pleaded, eyes meeting her own.

"I'm not running. I've just stopped living for a while."

She takes a long swing of the bottle, before pulling it back and wincing. She holds it to him and he takes it like a stranger.

"Can we be us again?"

Jade grimaced. "I think this is all really am. Beck, this is where we finally end. I'm gone tomorrow, and I'm never coming back. You've got Holly Wood, and I got New York. This is where we divide. I'm living my life, and you're continuing what you've been living."

Beck winced at the angry liquid that burns his throat.

She leaned over, and brushed her lips against his cheek. "I think there is a part of me that still loves you. But that part of me is dying. I've been gone for a long time."

"Don't go," he grasps hold of her hand, clutching it tightly.

She smiled a ghost like smile.

"I'm already gone, Beck."

_And you're alive again._


End file.
